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Russian mobile payments outfit uBank raises $8m

Russian mobile payments start-up uBank has raised $8 million in series a funding from Runa Capital as it prepares to expand outside of its home market.

UBank's mobile payments app enables users to attach credit cards from various banks so they can pay bills and transfer funds from their handsets or PCs.

With the app preinstalled on all Samsung and Fly smartphones selling in Russia, the firm has racked up more than 250,000 Android and iOS downloads since launching at the end of 2012.

The Runa Capital investment will be used to extend the service to CIS countries and beyond, as well as to develop new features such as restaurant bill payment and peer-to-peer money loans. BlackBerry and Windows Phone apps are also in the pipeline.

Laura Ashizheva, CEO, uBank, says: "With investments, which we received from Runa Capital, our company is going to develop more co-operations with regular payment receivers to accept uBank. Therefore, we will out-compete current players on payment transaction quantity using mobile application."